


and the earth's a distant point among the stars

by poplarstreet



Category: The Good Place (TV)
Genre: But also, F/M, Love Confessions, Oneshot, Soulmates, one of the many reboots, pining!chidi, pining!eleanor, two dorks in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-31
Updated: 2019-03-31
Packaged: 2019-11-16 12:09:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18094031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poplarstreet/pseuds/poplarstreet
Summary: Which was why what was happening right now was so terrifying- he wasn’t scared about his love for Eleanor. He felt sure, in a way he had never felt before, that he would love her forever. He felt sure enough to yell it from the rooftops, to tell anyone he met, to make an entire new thesis just on his love for her (which he couldn’t decide if she would love or hate).





	and the earth's a distant point among the stars

**Author's Note:**

> hey guys! this is basically pulled from an idea I had watching the finale again, it's based on a moment from the video Michael made for them. 
> 
> feel free to leave kudos/comments below, feedback is always welcome :)
> 
> song title is from 'falling' by graham coxon

_Reboot 709_

When Chidi had first arrived in the neighborhood and Michael had told him about soulmates, he had been ecstatic. 

Finally, now he had his chance for the connection he had always dreamed of. Someone to discuss philosophy with, someone to help him with his indecision, someone who would _understand_ him. 

That didn’t end up how it happened, however. Instead, his supposed soulmate admitted to being a fraud. Not only were the memories flashing against the television screen not hers, but her real life back on Earth had been less than ideal. To stay here she would need to improve herself. 

And it came down to Chidi’s choice to help her or not. 

He couldn’t let her down, despite the fact that he really didn’t know much about her. It just wasn’t him.

So he accepted his apparent fate, and tried not to think too much about the guilt and sorrow he felt over letting go of his soulmate. 

After all, he just didn’t really seem like the kind of person who would get to have that anyway, even in this strange heaven.

He did consider possibly seeing if something would work between Eleanor and himself, even though they weren’t soulmates, but they were just too different. And she seemed much too selfish and apathetic to even be considered a friend, let alone a romantic partner.

At first, he only helped her for his own peace of mind.

And then he spent more and more time with her, and for all of the inappropriate jokes she made, he truly got to know her. As they continued in the course (which she dubbed “Help A Bench Become Less Of A Shirtbag”) he almost forgot she was doing this out of a need to protect herself. 

It was a sudden revelation - the kind Chidi almost never had. He was the type to stew over his thoughts for a while before coming to a conclusion, not just throw random facts and opinions together in a flash to create something new.

Not this time, however. After getting immersed in the material he was teaching- something he had a habit of doing, after all, it was one of his favorite Sarte lessons- he noticed Eleanor scribbling something on the notepad in her lap.

_Oh great,_ Chidi thought, letting out a small sigh. _It’s another drawing of a burrito._

She looked up at him, her pencil hovering above her page, and Chidi braced himself for whatever she was about to say next. He was pretty sure she would show him something to show him just how little she listened, so it shocked him when she said, “Okay, and?”

He must not respond fast enough, something Eleanor often berated him for, so she continued. “Come on, teach. Bad faith, radical personal freedom, very cool,” she’s waving her hands as she does it, and he realizes she wants him to keep going.

So he does.

“Okay, well Garcin is a classic example of one of the big ideas Sartre proposed for looking at human interaction,” he says, watching as Eleanor continues to listen throughout the lesson while still jotting down a few notes.

It's shocking, really- somehow he hasn’t truly noticed the change. Gradually, Eleanor had stopped refusing to take a single line of notes or pick up any reading material that wasn’t a magazine about trashy celebrities. That Eleanor had just faded from view.

In her place was an Eleanor who genuinely cared about the ethics he was teaching her, paid attention so she could truly learn, and asked questions other than if the ancient philosophers has been discussing mastubation with her little half grin and raised eyebrows.

And he stopped helping her because of who he was, and started helping her because of all that _she_ was.

~~~

As a surprise, Michael announces that everyone in the good place will be given a television subscription with shows and movies suited to their exact taste. Eleanor was excited until she realized that instead of _The Real Housewives of Atlanta_ , the Good Place has analyzed the fake memories and given her an array of old black-and-white shows and movies. 

“I’m telling you, it’s like it was designed for a grandmother who died one hundred forking years ago,” she gripes to Chidi after a philosophy lesson. 

“I could look through them,” he offers, because of course he would. 

Despite her loud complaints, she passed him the remote and let him scroll past all of the options. “Who ever this was made for, they are the most boring forking person ever,” she grumbles, crossing her arms and giving an exaggerated pout, which Chidi dutifully ignores.

“Here’s something good,” Chidi suggests, clicking on a show labeled _The Twilight Zone_. It looks like all the rest, boring and dumb and of course black and white, but something in Chidi’s hopeful smile makes Eleanor say yes.

She feels a strange little twist in her heart, a little something that she knows is telling her something, but she shoves the thoughts out of her mind as he scrolls then through the lists of episodes before finally picking one.

It’s called _Nightmare at 20,000 Feet_ , and Eleanor is relieved to see it’s only twenty-five minutes long. Her initial thoughts on the show are proved wrong, however, as she gets pulled into the story almost right away.

Aside from a few jabs here and there that Chidi shushes, such as, “Divorce that bench!” and, “Of _course_ they aren’t listening to you, you’re crazy!”, Eleanor stays interested. 

At the end of the episode, she’s met with a small smirk from Chidi. “Alright, alright, wipe that look off your face pal, before I slap it off,” she grumbles once more. 

He continues to smile though, and nudges her gently with his leg. “Oh come on, you’re just upset that you’re one of the ‘boring people’”- he says it with air quotes- “who like this.” 

“Nope nope nope, this was awful and I hated it!”

“Do you want to watch another one?” Chidi is smug in a way that she hasn’t seen before, and she feels that strange little twist again.

Faking nonchalance, she leans back into the couch. “I _guess_.”

They stay up late watching it, episode after episode. They end up slowly gravitating towards each other until she’s practically tucked in close to his side, and despite pulling constant all nighters both on Earth and here, she ends up falling asleep pretty easily. 

She would never know the way Chidi smiles softly when her head drops on his shoulder, or his attempt to keep from bursting out into laughter at her small snores. 

Eventually, though, his thoughts force him to move, convincing him that staying any longer would be weird. “Hey,” he whispers gently, hoping it'll be enough to wake her. 

She answers him with another snore, and he fights back another laugh. “Eleanor, hey.” She won’t wake up, however, so Chidi awkwardly reaches his other hand to shake her other shoulder. 

She wakes up with a small snort, “Whha’s goin on?” she murmurs, her eyes heavy and voice still thick with sleep. 

“You fell asleep,” Chidi says, only to watch her drop her head on the back of the couch and drift back into oblivion. 

After a few more attempts to wake her up, which prove fruitless, he settles for grabbing a blanket and pulling it over her. Of course, then he begins to worry. What if she wakes up with her neck or back hurting from being on the couch so long? Can you get backaches in the Good Place?

Chidi decides that he’ll just carry her to her bed, as it’s not too far away. Leaning down, he puts one arm under her thighs and another across the top of her back and supporting her head. 

Eleanor snorts, and he freezes, but she continues her dozing. Making sure he doesn’t swing her into anything, he curses the lack of steps up to her bed as he takes it in one huge step. Once he’s at the top, he lays her gently in the middle of the bed and pulls a blanket over her. 

He ignores the feeling blossoming in his chest, the one he’s never quite felt before, and heads out to his own house.

~~~

“You’re not telling me your favorite meal is _churro dogs_ , are you?” Chidi laughs, the very thought somehow hilarious to him. 

Eleanor scrunches her nose up indignantly. “No, I’m very sophisticated, I’ll have you know.”

“So what is it?” There’s still a hit of a laugh behind his words that he tries to shove back down in an attempt to sound serious. 

“Shrimp scampi, of course. The fork is your favorite, Mr. Fancy?” 

“Mafe,” he says, explaining further at the look on her face. “It’s a dish my grandmother used to make, it’s this stew of chicken or fish simmered in peanut butter sauce with vegetables. She always used potatoes,” he sighs at the thought of it, the nostalgia hitting him hard. 

“Okay, well if you’re so convinced yours is better, let’s each make it and see whose is the best. I bet you fifty bucks mine is.” 

“What would we do with fifty doll-”

“It’s the principle of the fact!” She practically shouts, jumping up from the couch with ease. “Okay, how about you make your thing at your place and I’ll make mine here, and then we’ll have someone with _good taste_ judge.”

Something he can’t explain pangs within him -for some reason, he doesn’t want to leave right now- but he ignores it. He never even gets the chance to agree to the deal before Eleanor’s pushing him out of the house and out the door, crowing about how much he will love her food. 

When he gets to his little house, he calls Janet and asks for the basic ingredients. 

He’s ready to win. 

It’s only been a few minutes later- he can’t decide whether he wants to use peanuts or peanut butter for the sauce- and he’s shaken from his thoughts by a pounding on the door.

He opens it to find Eleanor there, to his surprise. They usually only spend time at her house, but she still walks into his like she owns the place. 

She makes a small sound in the back of her throat he thinks may be surprise at the sight of his kitchen and he can feel his heart quicken. Even though it wasn’t part of his field of expertise on Earth, for some reason he’s had a lot of motivation to write about the forms of love created by the ancient Greeks. 

So far there have been around fifteen different versions of his assorted theories on eros alone. The very thought of her seeing one, while pretty irrational, is enough to make him want to shrivel up and die. 

It’s not that, of course, as he’s yanked from his spiral by “You haven’t even _started_ yet?” 

He begins his protest but she rolls her eyes at him, muttering something under his breath. “Okay, doofus, just tell me what to do and I’ll do it.”

Chidi gives her a pointed stare. “If this is some elaborate stunt, Eleanor, I won’t let you sabotage my mafe.” 

She sighs. “Chidi, Jason already ate literally all of my food. You’ve been in here for like, seven hours. If we weren’t already dead I would have refused to come in here, because I’m pretty sure dead bodies aren’t that amazing of a smell.”

“Ah,” he says, a bit lost as to how to respond to that. 

Eleanor pushes back her sleeves a bit. “Let’s get cooking, partner.” 

Chidi’s about to tell her they probably shouldn’t- it’s pretty late by now, as he’s apparently been agonizing over peanuts for a good amount of time- but there’s a look that he can’t quite read in her expression. 

He’s never been good at reading people, and Eleanor is exceptionally good at hiding how she’s feeling, so he simply agrees.

It hits him after he’s said yes- it had been nerves. He doesn’t have enough time to question why she might be nervous before she’s demanding he tell her how to begin. 

They have a good time, and after a few hours when they try the mafe it’s not as bad as he had dreaded it would be. In fact, it's pretty amazing. He did almost have a heart attack after she put in the vegetable oil without measuring it first, but he got over it quickly. 

It becomes a frequent thing- they’ll do pretty much everything else at her house, but they’ll cook and bake at his. It’s not until Eleanor is making a simple chicken and rice recipe from memory that things take a little turn, however. 

Chidi’s honestly a little impressed- he hadn’t pegged Eleanor as the kind of person who knew how to cook.

“Where did you learn to cook like this?” he asks her later, after they’ve taken everything out and distributed it onto two plates. 

He happens to be looking at her right when he says it, or else he thinks he might have missed it. Something slips, just for a second, and what looks a lot like hurt crosses her face. It’s gone the next second, and she shrugs the question off with an “I dunno”. 

Chidi realizes she’s deflecting, but he can’t quite figure out why. It’s not like him to push, so they sit in silence for a few beats. 

It’s not a terrible silence, in fact he finds in quite nice. 

When she starts to talk, it’s so quiet he has to strain to hear. “My parents weren’t very good people. Before you, the apple didn’t fall very far from the tree,” she won’t look at him, her eyes instead focusing almost blankly on the food. “They were both alcoholics, it was a easy way for them to forget their lives, and they really wanted to forget.”

She laughs sadly, the noise striking Chidi to his core. “Part of me wanted to just run away, but I drew up the papers and got myself emancipated at fourteen. And it literally didn’t even take that much. I asked them to sign it and they did. They knew what it said and what it would mean, they just liked the way ‘free from all obligation’ sounded. So I kinda had to learn to cook with what I could buy.”

Her voice is a bit strained, almost like she’s trying not to cry. Chidi has the weird sensation of wanting to go back in time and scream and yell at her parents to open their eyes to what was in front of them. To show them that Eleanor deserved- no, _deserves_ \- better than some lowlife dirtbags who forced her to grow up way too fast. 

Part of him can picture her- sad and alone, lost in the world at fourteen- but another part of him is strangely proud of her. Even at such a young age, she had taken the hard way out because she knew it would be better in the long run. 

Her voice is stronger when she starts talking again, and she finally meets his eyes. “And for a long time, I blamed everything I did on my parents. Whenever I did something wrong, I, you know, kinda felt like the world owed me or some shirt. Like, I can’t be at fault here, the situation molded me into the kinda person I am and I will never change so just forking deal with it, when really it was because I wouldn’t even try to change.”

“I’m so sorry, Eleanor,” he says softly, hoping she can read the sincerity in his tone. 

“It’s not your fault,” her voice changes as soon as the words leave her mouth, the forced lightness coming back into her voice. “Plus, my trash bag personality on Earth brought this smoking hot goddess to your lives, so you are all _incredibly_ lucky.”

“I know you’re deflecting, because this is hard for you to talk about, but I’m always here if you want to talk. And yes, we are all lucky to have you here,” he says, hoping his sincerity is clear. 

“Okay, Cheeto, whatever you say.” The smile in her voice isn’t forced this time, and it brings a smile to his own face. 

Chidi really only wants for her to be happy.  
~~~

Chidi should have known, of course, that the peacefulness couldn’t last for long. 

As he is discussing Hume, Eleanor scribbling down notes in her ugly scrawl, Michael appears on the message screens to cheerfully announce his discovery of the problem-or yet his new way of finding it. He will be sweeping the neighborhood with something he claims will reveal what’s messing with everything.

The machine will take another week to complete, but it will work, Michael says confidently before the message blinks out. 

Right after the announcement, Chidi starts to panic. He starts pacing, desperate to keep moving. It’s as if the movement will help him wring out his emotions like a sponge, but he can’t move quite fast enough to match the frantic circles his brain is running in. 

“What are we going to do?” he exclaimed, wringing his hands together. “This, this, _machine_ could catch you!”

Sighing exaggeratingly, Eleanor rose from her seat to stop his frantic pacing. “Do you ever just chill out for _one second_ , bud?” Her hands were raised, palms out, like she was trying to placate a wild animal. 

Chidi looked at her in stark disbelief, the calmness she was giving off baffling to him. “You _do_ realize what this could mean, right? You could get sent to the bad place, Eleanor! And I-”

She interrupts him. “Listen, if it’ll ease your mind, I could go tell Michael right now. I could tell him that you never knew anything about me being a fake. It’ll be easier than waiting a whole week. “

Eleanor shifted nervously at the look in his face. Chidi had always been an open book, easier to read than the back of a cereal box, but for some reason that wasn't the case. At his silence, she continued, attempting a joke to diffuse the situation. “You’d be surprised, but I am a world class champion at lying.”

“Do you really think that I’m worried about myself right now?” His voice is in a tone she can’t decipher and leaves her feeling on edge. 

Every bone in her body is telling her to flee, like she did in most awkward or difficult situations, but she stands her ground. “That’s not what I meant.” 

“Oh really? Because it sounds like you think that my main concern right now is not you getting sent to literal hell, but is-” he stops short. “Oh...fork.”

“What?” But as soon as the words leave her lips Chidi stutters out an excuse and pretty much bolts out of the house.

“Well that was weird,” she mutters to a clown painting, and then wrinkles her nose at her own words. “Talking to a clown painting, Eleanor. Death has made you one crazy bench.”

~~~~~

Chidi had a dilemma. Or as Eleanor would say, he was in deep shirt. 

Because no matter how many times he had run the facts over in his head, he was still one hundred percent sure he was in love with her.

Which was practically unheard of, because even though Chidi had been in relationships in the past, he had always tripped up over the word ‘love’. Love was a deep and complicated thing to approach. 

If he said I love you today, how could he be sure that tomorrow he would feel the same way? Did he have a moral obligation to stay in the relationship because he had, at one time, been in love? Or what if, over time, the other person fell out of love? He would want them to be happy, of course, but confessing love to someone and them later saying they didn’t love him anymore would surely destroy him. 

And because of all of that, he never once said the exact words ‘I love you’ to anyone he had dated. It wasn’t because he hadn’t loved them at the time, but because he wasn’t able to predict their future together or the effects of it and so he just ran from it. 

Which was why what was happening right now was so terrifying- he wasn’t scared about his love for Eleanor. He felt sure, in a way he had never felt before, that he would love her forever. He felt sure enough to yell it from the rooftops, to tell anyone he met, to make an entire new thesis just on his love for her (which he couldn’t decide if she would love or hate).

It made a lot of things click into place- the way he sometimes couldn't look away from her smile, the real one, the one he had only seen a few times. The way he always wanted to be near her, be around her, just to hear her voice and know she was there beside him. The way he always seemed to want to be the funny one in a way he never had before, just to draw out her laugh.

The main problem was the undeniable fact that he was one of the only people who knew about the truth about her. Could she feel obliged to be in a relationship with him to protect her secret? Or maybe that she owed him something? The last thing that Chidi wanted was for Eleanor to feel like she owed him anything, especially love. The whole teacher-student thing didn’t bode well with him. 

And even if she didn’t feel she owed him, he didn’t want her to know his feelings for her if she didn’t feel the same. With his track record, she probably would never feel the same way. 

He needed someone to talk to, someone who understood the situation in its entirety. Which was why he, after pretty much running away from Eleanor, had gone to Tahani’s mansion. After searching through room after room, he found her painting with Jason in what looked like a art studio. Jason's painting depicted what he thought was some sort of monster destroying a town. Tahani was finishing up a beautiful meadow scene when she looked up and saw him. 

“Chidi! It’s wonderful to see you.”

Forgoing the usual pleasantries, Chidi rushed out, “I have a problem. It’s Eleanor.”

“Ah, is this about that machine Michael has created?” Tahani asked, her hand not holding the paintbrush over her heart. “Yes, it’s quite dreadful.”

“Yes. Or no? Right now I’m freaking out because,” he stalled a bit, the words dying before he could say them. “Well, I, kinda, I-” 

“You totally want to bone her?” Jason finished for him, not even looking up from the easel. 

“ _What_?” Chidi said, giving him a look mixed with disbelief, disgust, and horror. 

“I said, you totally want to bone,” Jason repeated, this time looking at him. “But you can’t, because you don’t know if she wants to bone you back, or if moral ethnics will say you guys can bone.”

Chidi had absolutely nothing to say to Jason, not even to correct him once again that it was called ethics and not ethnics, as Jason often tended to call it.

“I think that in quite possibly the crudest way possible, Jason is saying you need to express what you’re feeling for Eleanor," her careful pronunciation of the name making Chidi feel like she didn't really believe the words she was saying.

Chidi begins to pace again “I can’t, that’s the issue, because she is going to be discovered as a fraud by Michael in a week and we have a week to fix this and we can’t lose time with, with” he struggles with the words, “with all of this.”

Almost immediately, he delves further into his agitation, the horrid situation truly sinking in. “Oh my god, the clock is ticking and we do not have time, a week is nothing. And I’ve been worrying about my _feelings_ , oh my _god_ -”

Jason once again felt the need to pass off some advice. “Dude, if you only have a week before she gets married, just tell her now. One time, this guy in my dance crew, Hefty Hal, he tried saving this jar of salsa for the best day of his life, and it expired! He never even ate it, and also, he was a horrible dancer.” 

After a beat or two of stunned silence, Tahani spoke up. 

“Chidi, I must confess, I’m not blind. I think anyone could see the way you two look at each other.” 

Chidi’s brain short circuits at the ‘you two’, but Tahani wasn’t finished. 

“The worst thing you could do would be to keep this to yourself, darling. No, actually, the worst thing you could do would be to overthink this.”

“What did you mean by ‘you two’,” Chidi almost blurts, unable to let it go to the point of not even listening to Tahani.

“What?”

“You said that anyone could see the way you two look at each other. What did you mean?”

Rolling her eyes, Tahani sighed dramatically. “Good god, do I have to spell it out for you? Eleanor likes you, you like her. Now go, go, go,” she finishes, waving one hand at him as if he was being dismissed.

“Okay,” Chidi says, voice shaking a bit. “Oohhhkay. I got this.” 

And he did. He may have clammy hands and a heart beating a million times per second, but Chidi was going to be a witness to a hell frozen over before he let this go.

~~

_Michael was beginning to grow tired of the constant reboots, the constant failures. Everything seemed the same to him, the days mixing together and storylines growing confusing._

_And Eleanor had confessed to him. It’s pretty rare, as most times, she stands up at a meeting, or announces it at a party, or they come as a group to face him as if their stupid human unity will defeat him. This time, she had just come to him alone._

_“No one else knows,” she lies, but she’s so convincing that Michael might have a hard time it he hadn’t seen most of it unfold for hundreds of years. He tells her he believes her, but he can’t just allow her to stay here, and a train will be coming soon to take her to the bad place._

_It ends up being quite rewarding, after he makes an announcement over the screens and sees in delight how distraught Chidi is. Michael didn’t realize they were this close in this reboot. He stopped paying close attention many reboots ago._

_So he spices it up a bit- he tells them that the Bad Place will be determining if Eleanor will stay or go, but also instructs Trevor to jump into the video to tell everyone that once Eleanor is gone, someone will take her place._

_I.E., Chidi will have a new soulmate._

_It makes him giddy to know what will go down- Eleanor will be selfish and stay as long as she can, and Chidi will only fail at helping her in any way._

_It’s a perfect plan, if he does say so himself._

The train sits menacing in the station, the black smoke curling its tendrils high into the otherwise perfect atmosphere. 

Chidi hasn’t even seen Eleanor since the announcement, since he felt his heart bottom out almost immediately after it had been content with his choice to tell her the true extent of his feelings for her. 

And now it’s too late.

And Chidi doesn’t think he’s ever felt more helpless.

Because in the past, he had always felt like he was in complete control of his actions but he didn’t know what to do with his control. It was always A or B, decide wrong and the world implodes. So he just never decided on anything, too afraid of the ripple effect he could have. 

Just his luck that the one time he absolutely knows the way he feels, the one time he knows what he should do, is the time he has no control.

It’s her as they argue and she makes inappropriate jokes and he rolls his eyes. It’s her as they talk together and watch movies on her couch in her ugly house and as they stroll along the lake. It’s her who makes his heart flutter and pulse jump, in a good way. It’s her, Eleanor, the Arizona trash bag.

That’s the one he loves. 

And it’s too late. He’s not even sure how Michael found out, but the thought of her leaving on the train is killing him. 

He’s been pacing on the street in front of her house for a while now, hoping she’ll come back to it soon. It’s worth it when he catches sight of her entering her house. Practically running, Chidi hurries over to her door. He needs her to know he will not stop fighting for her, no matter what, and this is something they will be able to get through.

Together.

And then the door is locked.

It shocks him at first- she never locked her doors, often not even on Earth, but when he calls her name through the door to no answer he starts to feel a bit hysterical. 

In a stroke of genius, he calls Janet and asks for a key. He unlocks the door with a rush, only to find her stuffing some of her possessions into a small bag. 

She turns to him in shock, and something-or rather, everything- about her throws him for a loop. Her eyes are red rimmed and her hands are shaking and suddenly the reality of the situation comes crashing down and he feels _sick_. 

“Eleanor,” he says, not truly aware of the words leaving his lips until they’re gone. He can’t put all of the thoughts in his head into words, because the panic and desperation and _love_ are stopping his usually well-equipped brain from speaking. 

“What?” she bites out, her tone hard and defensive, and Chidi feels his heart twist painfully. 

“What happened?” It’s all he can manage, but it’s clearly the wrong thing to ask.

“Nothing _happened_. I just told Michael I was the one messing everything up and no one else ever knew about it, and he believed me.”

He feels frozen. Why on earth had she just confessed? Why on earth would she do that to herself?

“Don’t worry,” she starts, picking up more things from the table and shoving them into her bag, “I’m sure your nerdy new soulmate will be perfect.”

“There’s still a chance they’ll let you stay, Eleanor,” he insists, unwilling to even consider the other possibility. 

“That’s not what you want though, is it?” She asks, looking up from the scattered belongings on the table. “That’s not what anyone in this stupid heaven wants, okay? You can stop pretending. I will be out of your hair in no time, and someone who actually deserves this place will get to stay.”

“Eleanor, I am not going to just let you leave and allow someone to take your place, I can’t” he begins, but he stops short and tries again, unable to get the words he truly means out. “I just, I don’t,” that doesn’t work either.

“They will be your soulmate,” Eleanor snaps. “You’ll figure it all out, and just forget about me, as incredibly hot as I am. Trust me, I will become nothing but a small blip on your road to eternal happiness.”

She starts to walk past him, and in a rush he gently grasps her arm. She stops to look up at him, and that’s when he sees it- tears. Tears are pooling in her eyes, about to fall, and he feels helpless once more. 

“What?” she snaps, short and commanding. All of the sudden it hits him, all of it- the small tears in her eyes and what they might mean, what he wants them to mean. 

“I need to know how you feel about me.” It’s a definitive statement, one that he almost never makes. Eleanor’s clearly not expecting that, and her nose scrunches the way it sometimes does when she’s confused. 

Despite everything the action makes his heart flutter a little bit. 

“What the fork are you saying?”

“Please, Eleanor.” He’s aware he sounds desperate, that his voice is rising a bit as he speaks, but he doesn’t care. “Because I need to know, please.”

“Why does it matter? You’ll have a sweet little Miss. Glinda the Good to hump around with soon enough, so-”

“Because she’s not you!”

“What?” her voice is hard to gauge, but Chidi thinks he hears a note of hope and like good old Kierkegaard suggests he takes a leap into faith. 

“That imaginary person, it’s not you, Eleanor.” And then the hopeful look is gone and the wall is back up, but the stone is rolling now and Chidi can’t stop it. 

“I don’t want her, because I, I,” the stone gains momentum and- 

“you are the one that I want, and I,” the stone is flying into the air, soaring, “and Iloveyou!” 

The stone breaks into a million pieces at the slope of reality, and Chidi realizes what he’s said as he looks into her eyes. “I m-mean, umh, of course that was, umm,..you don’t-”

Eleanor’s lips are on his and her hands are resting on his arms and he feels complete. There’s a warm feeling in his chest, reminding him of the feeling he gets when he figures out the last few number sequences in a sudoku puzzle and gets to watch it all come together. It's that feeling, the warm joy in his chest, made ten times stronger. It’s like coming home, it’s like she _is_ his home and his family and she’s here and he loves her. It all feels familiar somehow, as if they have been doing this for years. 

When they break apart, Eleanor smiles at him, and he feels his heart swell. 

Like a switch has been flipped, something shifts in her expression. He’s about to ask her if something is wrong when she pushes him away, hard, and Chidi feels his heart drop back down. Her face is blown with dismay, and he feels light headed. 

“Why did you do that?” she exclaims, and Chidi is speechless. Did she not feel the same way? If she didn’t then why had she initiated it? Or did she regret kissing him? Was he a bad kisser?

“You’re the one who kissed me!” he says, his head still spinning and his palms starting to sweat and his vision shrinking as he feels his legs cease to hold him anymore. 

_Guess it wasn’t just the kiss_ , he thinks before he lets the waves pull him under. 

When he wakes up, she’s gone. There’s a pillow underneath his head and a blanket crumpled next to him that must have fallen.

He stands up, feeling his stomach churn as he remembers where he is, and sees a note on the floor. Picking it up hastily, he recognizes her handwriting. On the front, in scribbled thick black writing, it says _To Chidi_. 

_All my life, I didn’t believe in love. Or rather, that I could be someone that would find it. Everywhere I looked, it seemed that love never even lasted, and ended on depressing notes. Mostly it was arguments and slamming doors, expectations failed and unspoken rules broken. Sometimes it was the simple burnout, when you take a step back and say, ‘why are we still together, what is this for?’ and discover you can’t come up with anything. Love always seemed to have conditions, and that’s one thing I always avoided- commitment._

_In fact, I could never quite commit to anyone. I was always aloof about it, but I realize now that what was holding me back was fear. Fear of rejection, of betrayal, of a love that leaves a bitter taste in your mouth. I never even told a boyfriend I loved him, as that deep of a confession could open me up to hurt. I told exactly two people back on Earth I loved them, and they were Stone Cold Steve Austin and a guy in a dark bar that drunk me thought was Stone Cold Steve Austin._

_Anyway, I think now that’s what love is. Vulnerability. An intimacy coming from not physical touch (although that can help too- what can I say?) but from the willingness to truly open yourself up to them, to show them the truest parts of yourself and trust that they won’t leave. Trust that they will say, I am here for you, and I will stand by you, and we can make ourselves better by being together._

_But for some reason, I just can’t say it. The words get stuck in my brain, my inner voices screaming at me to be careful and to never be vulnerable, ever, because it’s foolish and weak._

_I want to be, though._

_I want to be vulnerable with you._

It’s clear that this was written at a different time, as the handwriting there is neat as he’s ever seen it and it’s in a thin pencil instead of Sharpie. 

At the bottom, there’s more, looking as if it had been written in a hurry.

_I just thought you should know that it wasn’t one sided, that it was never one sided._

_Promise me that you will move on, Chidi. I want you to, I want you to be happy. Try to find happiness with the good person they send here for you._

_I’m sorry, but I have to do this. Forgive me, will you?_

Dread strikes its way through him as he realized what it meant. Because just like last time she was going to throw herself under the bus.

Only this time, the train would actually leave and take her with it. 

He had to stop her. Grabbing his bag, he called for Janet again, who appeared with a small bing. 

“Where’s Eleanor?”

“She is at the train station,” Janet said cheerfully. “Would you like me to take you there?” 

“Yes,” he blurted, desperately. He prayed it wasn’t too late.

 

~~~

 

Eleanor always hated waiting. 

Patience was definitely not one of her gifts, especially when in lines. So standing at the train station waiting for someone from the Bad Place to come back to it and take her to literal hell was a _little_ more than annoying. 

Part of her knew what she was doing was stupid. After all, there was still a chance that the Bad Place could decide she wasn’t worth the trouble and leave her here.

But she knew that she couldn’t stay here with a clean conscious. Not with knowing that if she left, Chidi would be able to find happiness with someone who was actually good, someone who probably starved because they gave all of their resources to homeless cats or something. 

Despite his words back at the house, she knew he had to be lying to himself. After all, he had been introduced to her as her soulmate, maybe he had imprinted on her. 

_He’s not a goddamn dog, Eleanor,_ she chided in her head, but still. 

It was a sucky feeling- she assumed it was a side effect of all of the ethics lessons. In the past, it had been easy for her to ignore what was wrong with herself, to brush off any feelings of inadequacy with brash self confidence. Now, however, all she can think about is how much better of a person Chidi is, how much everyone in this neighborhood is, and all she can feel is a sinking sense of _you’re not enough._

It’s why she had confessed, this feeling, because it’s simply not okay with her any more to be here. From the beginning, she’s only pulled everyone down, only hurt everyone around her with her selfishness and apathy. Especially for Chidi.

This is unfair to him, this constant struggle he’s going through. Is this not supposed to be heaven? It would be, if she wasn’t there, she remembers. She is the reason why Chidi is miserable here. Without her, there would be no internal struggle over breaking his moral codes.

So she’s just going to make the decision herself. 

She’s yanked out of her thoughts by the gentle pounding of feet behind her, and she turns to find the source. 

It’s him. 

Chidi Anagonye is standing there, a brown bag in his arms, and he’s _here_. 

Shock is lighting up every part of her body like a forking disco ball and she can’t comprehend the swirl of emotions running through her, only that he’s here and somehow it's enough to calm the storm inside her mind. She only barely registers the bag sliding off of her shoulder as he runs towards her, dropping his own bag to the ground. 

And then his hands are soft against her face and his lips are gently pressed against hers and it feels like coming home, like she’s finally found something worth holding onto that she’s not willing to let go. She brings her hands up to curl around his neck as his find the small of her back, pulling her closer. 

It’s the best kiss she’s ever had. 

They break apart gently, her hands lightly resting on his chest as they catch their breath. 

“Did you mean what you wrote in the letter?” he asks a bit breathlessly, and even though her hands aren’t over his heart she can imagine his pulse fluttering beneath her fingers the way hers is. 

“Yes,” she says, and the look of relief in his eyes is almost enough to break her completely. 

And then it changes, worry washing anew over his face. She feels it too, over what she’s not quite sure yet-maybe he’s realized he doesn’t feel the same- until he blurts nervously, “Don’t leave.”

“I-” 

“Please, Eleanor, I know you feel like you aren’t enough, or something, but you are, okay? I don’t need some, some, perfect person, I meant what I said. I just want you,” he looks almost desperate, and she realizes that while she may have never said it out loud he’s figured out her darkest fear. 

Never being enough. 

She leans forward and catches his lips in hers again, because words are too hard to form and she simply can’t say all she’s feeling with just words. Even though he’s already said it and she had let him know she felt the same way, she does need a little extra boost to say it out loud. 

When they break apart, his eyes are closed for a beat longer than hers, and when he opens them she’s close enough to realize, for the first time, how deep of a brown they truly are. The light is catching them just right and she can see golden highlights woven through in an intricate pattern. 

Suddenly she’s overwhelmed and it’s never been easier to say the words because love is bubbling up and out of her chest like a fountain, out of control and overpowering. 

“I love you,” she breathes, and if the look before when she had confirmed her feelings wasn’t enough than the look on his face now will surely destroy her. 

“Eleanor,” his voice hitches when he says it and she can feel herself falling deeper at the low timbre, “I love you.”

She gives a breathless laugh, she’s never heard anyone say those words in that way, with that much reverence and sincerity. It feels like heaven, like heaven should feel instead of the craphole it’s been feeling like. 

It’s everything.

~~~

_And somewhere far away, anger crests and crashes down upon a being who has not yet learned about humans in a way he soon will, and so everything resets once more._


End file.
